Anyone getting nervous about possible Level 4 Water Restrictions?
The QLD Govt hasn't finalised them yet but are looking at October-November, if no rain till then, but Beattie has publically stated that they'll probably include no watering with buckets.
I wonder if they'll think to look at the aquarium hobby? Not that they'll be able to police water changes itself, but can't the councils check water usage invidually to a residence?
Contact your local council.
Most have no water restriction allowance when water is used as needed for the well being of animals and that includes aquarium fish.
Cheers Linda
I agree with Linda, it would all have to come under the animal welfare act.
You could always do what I do and I am sure others do. I have big tubs outside around the yard the collect water when it rains. All up I have about 250lt at any one time. Using the rain water is good aswell because it cuts down on the need for cemicals in my tanks aswell. It is not always enough but it dows cut down on the amount of water I have to use from the tap.
Isn't rain water a little soft? Its just what I heard. Unless you add water hardner to it I guess.
An even better way is to cut down on the number of water changes, and also the amount changed, and when you siphon the gravel, strain the dirty water and put it back in.
I think as water keepers we have to try to conserve as much as possible, otherwise sometime in the near future, we might find councils restricting our hobby as well.
What I'm trying to say is that we have to be seen to be conserving water to the best of our ability, otherwise the choice will be taken from us.
Theo
I don't know about the water beeing hard or soft all I know is my guys are fine in it. I have cichlids, loaches, b/n and gourami
I work for a local council and will ask around to see what is planned for level 4.
I agree with Theo, water conservation will impact the hobby sooner or later. Is there anyway we can recycle our tank water completely?
Given that an aquarium is a high density bio-tope sustained by a bio, chemical and mechanical filtration system, we're half way there when you look at it.
Essentially, we only change water periodically to remove nitrate build-up and like Theo mentioned you can stretch these periodic water changes as fish can tolerate high levels of nitrate: >200mg/l maximum from what I've read.
But we all know fish are happier, more colourful, breed more easily and grow quicker with regular water changes of fresh water.
So is it possible to remove nitrates without changing old water? I know on a bigger scale, some aqua-culture professionals use recirculating systems where they use the same water over and over.
Well team, all you need to do is sump it outside to a pond and fill it with duckweed- nitrate in solution = fertiliser...watch the duckweed grow and remove some every week to keep nitrates down. Essentially a smaller and much simpler technique to what the big industries use to purify water.
eg. my shed at the moment is sumped into a 7ft pond but has to be in the shed to artificial lighting required = so, so growth. New place in moura, pond will be outside and boy, just watch the nitrate be consumed.
you're right Brad that we only do water changes to remove nitrate, so why not get mass plants to do it? or we can try all sorts of other things...i have been trying stuff for ages hey. lots and lots of interesting reads on the internet about DIY nitrate filters...anaerobic do-nitrifying bacteria, i had smoe success with a system here in the house a couple of years about and intend the outdoor pond plant consumption in Moura.
The alternative for you all is......
Move to Moura, Blackwater...anywhere except the SE corner and basically, more than enough water for your fish OR......
If we just look after it (why can clowns not drink recycled water i will never know) we'll never have a problem. Everyone fit a rainwater tank to their house for drinking (or how about a govt rebate to convince those who won't pay for one themselves), use your grey water to water the yard, cap australia's free flowing bores, ban cotton and rice growing in australia and promote better use of water (ie, "2 ML of water = $1600 to normal users, grows 1 tonne of rice worth $260/t" (quoting Prof Paul Kerin- July 6-12 BRW) and Australia has more than enough water to cater for 40 million people. How long do we have to allow people to sprinkle lawn in the middle of the day in summer before we thought we were wasting water? he he he
So basically, if we had some intelligence running the state we'd be a lot better off for water management.
Ha Ha Ha...Didn't that get off the topic!!! Brad.. try and build you own nitrate filter, it's a great challenge and very, very rewarding if you can do it.....a very slow filtration- like basically another separate sump on a system with no aeration and very, very slow flow rate, plenty of reading on the internet about it...if you have the room and effort, why not try nitrate filtration/consumption techniques- if you can master it = no water changes!!
you can commercially but nitrate filters but they are expensive and require constant purchasing of the"feed balls" which really is just a small amount of organic matter that the de-nitrifying bacteria consumes to do it's job.
Have a read about these sorts of things on the internet guys, it is all very very interesting and we can all get a lot closer to monimising water changes!
Cheers,
Andrew.
I don't know about brisbne but Ipswich council said that we are still able to use a hose for tanks but have to use buckets for ponds. I don't know if that will help anyone. All i did was ring the council and they told me.
Cheers
Hi Guys and gals,
Here's my 2 cents worth. Have the water flow thru a small hydroponics system before it gets back to the sump. That way, you can grow some home grown organic vegies and reduce your shopping bill.
Alternatively, you can have the hydroponics in an enclosed room for medicinal herbs :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
Either way, nitrate is gone and you are happy. give it some thought.
Cheers,
dan
Yes....we do water changes to get rid of nitrates but I think it also dilutes organic compounds.....hormones etc.
I'm aware one of the concerns with recycled sewerage was the inablity of proposed processes in removing residue of "the pill" and the long term impact on the maleness of a population?
In a recycling system for fish I think you would be desirable to pass all water through activated carbon to remove the organic componds.
Marine tanks use Protein skimmers for this purpose....but they don't perform as well in fresh water....but might be ok on Rift Lake tanks using hard water???
I'm glad we've had this drought to make everyone more appreciative and careful with our limited resourses.
For what it's worth all my used tank water goes on the lawn and garden.
Saves me watering with buckets from the tap otherwise, and stops the plants from dying. Effectively I use the same water twice from when it comes out of the tap - and to think I used to sometimes pour it down the drain pre sprinkler ban days!!!
I'll certainly do some reseach for nitrate filters on the net Andrew, thanks for the insight.
Personally, I am about to trial Seachem Purigen in an effort to remove Nitrates thus minimise water changes and water consumption.
Michael
With my new system being planned I have tried to recycle as much water change/ waste water as possible.
The plan is to have a 2000L + water tank taped to the guttering of our house as well as being supplemented with all water change water (currently being put on the lawn).
The poly tank will have a 4 stage R/O filter plumbed to it and this will fill my 6x2x2 water change holding tank. The tank will slowly be filled with R/O water as it can only filter approx. 100L or so a day.
R/O filters can apparently take out as much as 95% of heavy metals and chemicals in the water so it will be better water then what i'm probably using now.
If all goes well I may not ever have to use mains water again for the tanks.
The only problem that this idea has is the fact rain may never fall again and the poly tank will eventually run dry due to evaporation.